


Memories

by TheFairysPath (friendlyneighborhoodfairy)



Series: The Path I Took (WWTDP 2018) [14]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Erik is a sap, First Kiss, Forgiveness, Guilt, Jellal is a badass at magic, M/M, Mind Reading, Rare Pairings, Self-Hatred, Slavery, Torture, hearing thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 08:47:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16343654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlyneighborhoodfairy/pseuds/TheFairysPath
Summary: Erik is startled to hear Jellal thinking about when they first met. And then Jellal starts hearing Erik's thoughts too.(Fic #7 forWhen We Take Different PathsMLM week.)





	Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dreaming_of_Fairys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreaming_of_Fairys/gifts).



> Prompt = memory + Jerik.
> 
>  **Trigger warning** for harmful thought patterns (negative self-worth mantras, etc).
> 
> Ack! When I posted last night at 3am, I totally forgot to dedicate this to Dreaming_of_Fairys, who suggested a key piece of their mental dialogue, and it was so funny I had to add it. ^_^

Erik's ears perked. In Jellal's head, he saw his own face. Fifteen years younger.

Jellal's thoughts weren't always clear, but these were burnished and bright, a memory Jellal was contemplating with great intensity. As the man sat there, a small and thoughtful smile graced his face, and that was just weird.

In the memory, Erik recognized the day they first met.

It was in the evening after feeding, in a cell where the children were thrown. Through Jellal's eyes, he saw a dirty child holding a tiny baby adder he had found and was nursing back to health. Erik's wide eyes looked up through hanks of red hair, and Erik, who thought he'd always been self-contained, saw how obvious his fear was.

The thing about memories was that they weren't like lacrima-vision. They were tempered and tainted by the rememberer's emotions; details were blurry except for those certain things that had made them feel a certain way.

In Jellal's memory, everything was fuzzy but for Erik's face. His eyes were sharpest of all, and they didn't look exactly like Erik's eyes in real life: they were brighter, less shadowed, less jaded, more open.

That was how Jellal had seen him?

For him, Jellal had been a startling boy. Brightly-colored hair in a place where everything was dull. The strange tattoo around his eye captivated young Erik immediately. He wanted to know where it came from, if it had hurt.

But his first words were grumpy, because this random boy had just walked up to him without explaining, and in this place, when you didn't understand bad things happened. They beat you or you missed a meal or they took you away and sometimes you never came back. Those were all incomprehensible things.

This boy was incomprehensible. He was  _smiling._

In Jellal's memory, Erik saw the other view. Saw his younger self stick out his chin and say with quavery bravado, "What are you looking at?"

"Is that your snake?"

Erik immediately caged the animal against his chest. "Don't you dare. If you tell the guards, I'll kill you."

"Where'd you find it?" the boy asked, walking forward—Erik remembered how unperturbed Jellal had seemed, and he could see his own disconcerted expression.

How small and insecure he looked.

"She was hurt," Erik said quietly, still cradling the snake.

"I saw you feed her some of your meat. That's very kind of you."

"She's got to eat like us."

"I'm hungry all the time," Jellal said sadly. In the memory, Erik could practically feel both children's hunger. How basic they'd been in those days, living for food and the tiniest bits of comfort they could find. Nothing beyond the next minute seemed real. It was how the guards controlled them. Who could dream of rebellion when you were so busy dreaming of stealing an extra slice of bread?

"Me too. Hungry," Erik said.

When Jellal's eye level lowered—sitting down next to Erik—Erik gave him a distrustful glare, but then shifted and let Jellal share the rock he was using as a bench.

"What's her name?" Jellal asked.

"Cubellios."

"May I pet her?"

"No," Erik burst out.

"Okay." Jellal backed away a bit—at the time, Erik had interpreted it as him reacting to Erik's anger, but from this perspective, he realized Jellal was only trying to seem nonthreatening.

Jellal continued asking questions, and this moved on to them conversing about the types of animals around their hometowns. It turned out they were from the same area—or at least, they had a lot of similar memories. Neither remembered the name of where they were from.

"You can touch her," Erik finally said, grudging. "Careful," he added. "She's fragile. And she'll bite. Just pet her belly with a finger."

Jellal obediently followed directions. Erik remember this part well: how Jellal's eyes had widened in delighted awe, how he'd looked at Erik with that expression, and for a moment, they weren't in a prison, they were just two boys excited about a snake together.

The adult Jellal shook his head and the memory faded—right when it had gotten good, too, when they'd started talking about deeper things; sadder things, what they wanted, what they hated about the Tower, if they were going to get out.

Jellal had let the memory end on a note that made Erik surprisingly embarrassed. He felt vulnerable knowing Jellal had remembered all that; like some truth about himself had been laid bare.

Ironically, once upon a time, he wouldn't have minded feeling that way where Jellal was concerned. But he was older now. Vulnerability repelled him these days.

The reason he liked the rest of that memory, depressing as it was when they were talking about their nonexistent future, was that he remembered getting lost in the conversation, feeling not alone for the first time in his life. He had  _found_  something, there in that hellhole of a place, and it was precious.

The memory was bittersweet, too, because he had lost that precious thing.

Erik had always wanted a friend whom he could share his thoughts with. Lean on. Speak with. Someone whose out-loud words he actually wanted to listen to. There were times he'd glimpsed what that might be like, times where he and fellow slave-boy Jellal sat down in the corner of the cold cell where they were forced to sleep and had talked and laughed and sat together and commiserated and teased and told stories, and it had been wonderful. It had been friendship.

But every time, that was taken away. By someone: the Tower, Brain, the Council.

Erza fucking Scarlet.

The firelit smile on Jellal's face tonight was an enigma. Erik hadn't listened to his thoughts in a long time, not since he'd had to sit there and witness Jellal appreciating Erza's looks—he just couldn't stomach that sort of thing. He told himself that was true of any besotted thoughts he overheard, with Jellal—no, with Jellal it was worse.

Jellal had been his first and last friend.

And yet, Jellal had betrayed him, too—betrayed all of them. Then rescued them. He'd helped them. He'd…

He'd always been there.

"I can hear you, Erik."

Erik's head shot up, trying to decipher whose thoughts he was hearing—no one else was with them at the fire, but the rest were all within his earshot—but no, Jellal's  _mouth_  moved, and his body turned so he could smile directly at Erik.

"Anything I can do for you?" Jellal asked, still wearing the damn fucking serene smile.

"No," Erik grunted, rising. "And the name is Cobra. Get it right."

"It's never been Cobra," Jellal said. "You don't think of yourself as Cobra. That's a codename Brain gave to separate you from your past identity. To turn you into the person he would mold, who would do his will without realizing it. It's a classic manipulation technique in trafficking circles."

"You have a real fucking way with words, you know that?" Erik snarled. "I've never done anyone's will but my own."

"Alright."

"What do you mean  _alright?_ " Erik sneered. Jellal was trying to fucking patronize him? As if.

Jellal rose across from him, expression falling into a frown for the first time. Despite his frustration, Erik found himself automatically wondering how he'd disappointed the man.

 _How about…we be honest._ This time Jellal's words were in Erik's head.  _But if that's not what you want, I can go._

 _Can you really hear me?_ Erik thought back.

_Yes._

He did not understand that. How someone without his magic could do that. On the other hand, Jellal was more capable with magic than anyone Erik had ever met.

_What the fuck do you want to be honest about? Spit it out._

_Feelings,_  Jellal replied simply.

Erik's lip curled. "Whatever," he said aloud. "You do that if you want."

"Erik."

"It's Cobra. If I have to tell you one more—"

He was cut off by cloth muffling his mouth, Jellal's hood getting in his face as Jellal held him.

Erik was shocked. He hadn't even heard the move coming. Hadn't anticipated… Nobody touched him like this. No one.

"I'm sorry for everything," Jellal whispered.

He stepped back, and Erik hunched, trying to get away from the touch that burned—

Jellal reacted to this with fear and retreat.

"I should've known. Fuck, I'm sorry," Jellal said, backing up another step. "I know what you're feeling, being touched without warning—shitfuck. I won't do that again."

Erik swallowed.

Jellal's head shot up.

"Really?" he asked.

"I didn't say—" Erik began.

"You do want…?"

Erik shrugged; he was done trying to anticipate where this conversation was going. His guildmates were right: having someone hear your thoughts was disconcerting.

He wouldn't mind being hugged again. If it were Jellal.

"Yes," Erik said.

The fear left Jellal's face, replaced by an emotion that crinkled his eyes up at the corners ever so slightly, but which also had him looking…awed? Contemplative? Erik couldn't place it. And he couldn't hear any of Jellal's thoughts.

But though he smiled at Erik's  _yes,_  Jellal did not come closer.

"I never liked Erza like that, you know," Jellal said quietly, ducking his head in a shy gesture as his cheeks turned pink. "You can stop thinking that. She's my best friend, my grounding rod, but not…it's not like that."

Erik still felt jealous, and he let it roar through his head.

"Yeah, sorry," Jellal said, scratching his neck. "I probably should've cleared that up a long time ago. I just didn't know how to tell you."

"Why not?" Erik asked.  _And why me?_

"Because…"

Jellal's expression folded, his body drawing in and hands creeping up to cover his mouth.

"Fuck, I don't deserve to say this."

"Which?"

"I…I was terrible to you," Jellal murmured.

"Yeah, you were," Erik growled.

They were on the edge of very important things now. The most important. They were at the crux of the matter, and Erik would not let this go.

"You—You…" Erik's throat closed around the pain in his heart.

"Say it," Jellal whispered.

"You enslaved me," Erik choked out. "You kept me on that island even though I wanted to leave. You lied to me, and made me believe that doing what you wanted would get me what I wanted. You used me—"

"I used your emotions." Jellal's fingers had crept up to cover his eyes, and his shoulders shuddered like a building considering its own collapse. Erik could smell the salt of tears. "I knew you liked me and I—I used that. Like a bastard I used that, and…"

"You used all of us. I don't care what that witch Ultear said: even if she manipulated you, you still made those choices. You still ruled us and made us keep building that tower for you. You made us  _want_  the hardship, the lack of food, taught us to embrace sacrifice…"

"I don't deserve—"

"It was messed up. I wanted you as my  _friend,_ " Erik snarled. "You  _were_  my friend. I trusted you. And you just used me. Everyone in my life has used me."

"I'm sorry," Jellal hiccoughed, wiping his face. His eyes were red-rimmed.

Erik huffed, feeling exhausted. His blood pumped in his ears. All he could hear was the weight of Jellal's guilt, and it did nothing to assuage his anger. Through all these years, he'd held onto the emotions that Jellal had first ignited in him, had avoided this conflict by thinking surely something would excuse it all. Now that they were discussing what Jellal had done…Erik couldn't see how he'd ever thought they could get past this.

Jellal's mental walls crumbled as his mind turned inward on itself. It gave Erik an open door to his thoughts.

To every pain that began to rush through him.

Jellal's guilt and shame imploded, and Jellal flew down a spiral of self-loathing. This was clearly a well-traveled path, for Jellal's inner voice repeated,  _I deserve it I deserve it I deserve it,_  over and over with the habitual ease of an addict.

In that spiral, Jellal's worst memories surfaced, and he dove headfirst into them.

Erik almost threw up.

It was an instinctual reaction, the sudden assault of torturing sensations hitting him like a physical blow. Pain and blood and jeers and blows. Jellal stripped and whipped by a roomful of guards; Jellal beaten until he lay still, eyes falling shut only to be brought back from the edge of unconsciousness by a vicious kick between his legs; Jellal's hair jerked back so hard some parted from his scalp, face held still as those over him discussed taking his eye, watching as they brought the knife down and he couldn't move, their laughter, them cutting his chest with that knife over and over until he wished they'd taken his eye so he'd be left alone.

_I deserve it, I deserve it, I deserve it…_

Other things slipped through, Jellal staring down at plans for the tower while tears obscured his vision, Jellal on his knees begging for a better world, for death, for revenge, for his body to stop hurting and nightmares to stop assailing him every night. Praying, and nothing worked, no one listened to little broken Jellal, but if he worked harder, if he finished the tower, someone would save him, or at the very least he'd have the power to exact revenge and end the world that hurt children without care.

Jellal stuffed these memories down like they hurt, returning to  _I deserve it_ and snatching at memories of pain and torture like they could rescue him from hope.

_Hope kills. Love is a lie. No one cares. I deserve it, I deserve it…_

Erik was crying. He never cried.

Fuck.

His breath shook out of him as he collected himself.

FUCK.

It was loud enough any mind nearby could hear.

There was Jellal's mental  _oh shit_  and the realization that Erik could hear his thoughts. Then the mantra changed to,  _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry._

 _I forgive him,_ Erik thought.  _I forgive him for all of it._

To his amazement, it was true.

The horror that dwelt in the dark pits of Jellal's mind tugged at Erik. Inside, they were the same. Small and scared that everything would be taken away, again and again. Terrified of pain. Wondering if things could ever get better, hating how painful it was to dream, fearing nobody would ever love them, watching everyone they knew take their hope and use it against them.

Without hope, they would die. Both of them would. They would stop moving, lay down, and die.

Tiny and completely unintentional, Jellal thought,  _I don't want to be alone anymore._

And Erik thought,  _I don't either._

They stared at each other as they both realized the other had heard.

"Just stop thinking such terrible things," Erik said gruffly, rubbing his arms. "I don't like it."

"I'm sorry," Jellal whispered.

"Those are messed up memories."

"I—I'll try and…"  _…think quieter._  "…stop thinking about it. I'm sorry."

"Why the fucking hell would you be sorry?" Erik crossed his arms. "Not like you did anything to deserve it."

"I suppose."  _I deserve it…_

_No, you fucking don't. Stop saying that._

_Stop listening to me,_  Jellal thought back.

_Like I can help it._

_You can. It's easy. You just stop listening._

"Then you stop listening, if it's so fucking easy," Erik said.

Jellal looked away.

Erik closed his eyes and let his pulse calm.

"Life is shit," he said after a while.

A small smile tugged at Jellal's lips, a hint of the confident Jellal whom Erik knew. "Yeah."

After a moment, Jellal spoke again.

"You wanted to know how I could hear you. I learned when we fought."

Erik raised skeptical eyebrows. "When you kicked my ass?"

"Your words, not mine."

"How the fuck did you learn to listen to thoughts in the middle of fighting?"

"I…watched your magic? The same way anyone learns new spells."

Erik shook his head. "I give up trying to understand you."

Finally Jellal smiled, head down as if to hide. Erik had the sudden urge to tip his chin back up and make Jellal face him.

Blushing, Jellal coughed.

Erik was just thinking (and trying not to, in case Jellal was listening) that Jellal looked cute like this when he heard Jellal think:

_He's sweet and hot. I am so fucked._

Erik choked.

Wait.

 _I heard that,_  he thought, trying to stay calm. It was just a thought. People had thoughts all the time.

But…not those thoughts. Not about a friend.

 _You heard_ _nothing_ _._  Jellal's thoughts were definitely embarrassed, and his face was an even brighter hue.

"No," Erik said, smiling a little, "Pretty sure I did."

 _Fuck._  That was an unintentional thought. It was followed by a mess of memories in a tangled heap—an image of Erik as a young boy pointing at something excitedly and Jellal watching the way the dawn lit him and the way Erik's smile transformed his face into something beautiful—then snapping to a memory of yelling at a girl and forcing her into submission until she willingly carried the bucket of stones that Jellal told her to.

Then bang, another memory of Erik, this one distinctly more erotic, of a time when Jellal had run into the Oracion Seis on the continent, and Jellal had apparently gone to the river while Erik was bathing and caught a glimpse of him shirtless and stayed there staring… Then a memory of Jellal striking Simon across the cheek and sending him flying for not doing as he was told.

"If you keep doing that, I'm going to get whiplash," Erik rumbled.

"I—it's not for you, it's…" Jellal's eyelids fluttered, breath stuttering.

"To remind yourself you don't deserve me," Erik said. "Yeah, I got that."

Inhaling, Jellal met Erik's gaze.

Erik had taken a step closer, into Jellal's personal space—he wasn't sure when, but the gesture felt like he was being comforting, or trying to—he was incredibly bad at this. Bad at taking care of people.

"You think I'm any better?" Jellal whispered.

"You take care of people now." Erik looked around the camp. Somehow, it was still just the two of them—Erik checked and found Melody still collecting firewood, Sawyer and Richard goofing off instead of helping, Sorano looking for a place to pee. "You have a whole guild who relies on you, and you take care of them, you—"

Erik stopped.

He'd heard it.

Jellal wanted to kiss him.

Jellal didn't move.

He didn't think he deserved to, of course. Didn't think he was worthy.

 _Don't I deserve it?_  Erik thought.  _I've waited. I've endured. When have I done enough to get my kiss?_

Jellal's mouth hung open in an 'o.'

_If you really want to take care of me, stop keeping me waiting._

Erik was staring grumpily at a tree as he thought it, distinctly discomfited by how raw these words were—there was no way in hell he could've said them aloud.

"You're sure," Jellal whispered. "This is what you want?"

Erik looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

"If you don't want to, I can go," he echoed. There was a distinct twist in his stomach.

That got Jellal moving, a strange mirror of emotion that rattled between them until the tension was far too high and they'd walked right up to each other's faces.

When Jellal kissed him, Erik gasped, surprised and automatic. His instincts rose the next instant, tongue stretching eagerly to swive the inside of Jellal's mouth: to capture him and keep him there where Erik could have him. Where it could continue being real and not a lie.

"Not a lie," Jellal breathed against Erik's lips, which were still moving against his. "I don't want to lie. Not to you."

Erik grunted.

Then, too quiet for any normal human ears, Jellal groaned, "Erik…"

Even softer, inside the confines of his mind, Jellal thought,  _Do I really deserve this?_

"Yes," Erik gasped roughly, "fuck yes, you do."

"Gods," Jellal whimpered.

"There are no gods. Only us." Erik bit Jellal's lip, fascinated by the sounds Jellal made. Scratching his nails under Jellal's shirt had a similar effect. "We make life what we want."  _I want…_

 _I want to make it with you, too,_  Jellal thought clearly.  _I want to see what this could be like._

Yes.

Erik couldn't help replying tartly,  _If you can hear my thoughts, it'll be_ _really_ _interesting._

Jellal broke away to laugh. Seeing a smile on his face filled Erik's reserves, and before he knew it, he was smiling too. Goddamn  _grinning._

Jellal changed him. His presence always had: into something better, something closer to what Erik wanted to be. Jellal made him want to be worthy to take care of a broken soul. Jellal made him feel like he could be worthy. Like he was maybe, possible, already enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I adored writing this fic.
> 
> SplendidlyImperfect, you'll note a particular vocabulary word I used just for you. XD


End file.
